Graduating in the Rain

I haven't been to many college graduations, but this one seemed pretty big to me. They said that the Virginia Tech class of 2011 was the largest one in the history of the school, at about 5,000.

This photo shows the football stadium before the graduates were in it. The men down on the field were actually using leaf blowers to dry the seats from the rain that had fallen earlier in the day. Here is a rather ominous public service announcement on the jumbo tron.

Finally the graduates are all on the field. It looks grey and misty because it was. Grey and misty.

A glance to our right shows the storm moving in over the stadium. Did we have umbrellas?

No, but lots of the smarter graduates did. After about five minutes of torrential rain, with the commencement speaker bravely trying to be heard, the lightning started and the graduation was abruptly over.

Here are the kids in the parking lot after we made the trek back to the cars.

I don't know how Melissa managed to stay so much drier than her sister, but she did.

Luckily, the Saturday ceremony was indoors, and she was able to walk across the stage and receive her degree without getting rained on, so all was well.